Perfect timing for my daughter to get sick. 2-1/2 weeks into a new job. With no manager or director right now. Sigh. Tuesday night we were up half the night with her because she wasn’t feeling well. Poor peanut, I know this is not her fault but shit. What awful timing!

Yesterday I stayed home from work with her. I tried to do some work when she napped but also wanted to make sure I took good care of her. I was able to still attend a conference call because the husband came home from work. I felt so incredibly guilty when I was working and not taking care of V, and then felt guilty when I was with her and not attending to my work. It’s incredibly exhausting to feel like an octopus juggling all these balls in the air. And the sad fact? By trying to spread myself so thin I’m not doing any of these things well. At all.

Last night she still had almost a 103 fever. I felt so bad for her because I knew she was miserable. Poor baby. Even though she woke up with no fever this morning, I still wanted to keep her home for another day.

Which meant another morning of trying to juggle. Then rushing off to work for an afternoon filled with meetings and trainings. Sigh. These are days that I wish I could clone myself.

My morning started off by me dropping and shattering a coffee mug, coffee splattering all over the floor and my dress. Guess I didn’t really want to wear that outfit today. Husband left for the gym so I was left to wrangle the toddler to get her ready for school.

First she didn’t want to leave the house and was scream crying. Then I tried to coax her with tablet. It turned off so she started crying again. We get to school and she didn’t want to give the tablet up. She screams at me. Out of frustration she throws the tablet so I take it and put it away. More screaming and crying. I tell her it’s time to go to school and she tries to slap me and physically fights me when I try to take her out of her car seat. I back off and try telling her again it’s time for school. She’s shaking her head and hollering “Noooooooo!” at me. I try again to get her out of seat and I have to hold on to her carefully as she is flailing and fighting me all the way. We walk into the building and she throws her milk, where it promptly spills all over the floor.

I take her to classroom for drop off. She wants nothing to do with me. I kiss her goodbye and as I walk out of the room, I feel the tears welling up. I quickly walk out and get in my car and lock the door.

I lay my head on the steering wheel and sobbed uncontrollably. It’s barely 7:30 and I’m already emotionally and physically exhausted. Now it’s time for me to buck up and head into week 3 of my new job, where I will face an entire day of not knowing what-the-fuck-I’m-doing, adding to the incompetence and ineptitude I already feel.

I feel so badly about how things went down with my daughter. I feel completely at a loss on how to deal with her when she’s like this. And then I feel like a terrible mother when I lose my patience with her. I vaccilate between trying to understand what she may be going through and thinking “I don’t have time for this fucking shit.”

Here I sit at the office, working on a server outage I know nothing about, praying I don’t dissolve into tears at work. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I’ve written before that I’ve struggled to find my tribe of women mom friends. Since moving to Atlanta, most of our friends don’t have children. In an effort to make new friends, I’ve tried creating my own meetup group. Out of the 4-5 meetups I’ve hosted, I’ve had exactly zero people show up (womp womp). Despite feeling like a loser, I’m still trying to put myself out there.

I recently heard about an app called Peanut, that helps to connects moms. The advertisement was during a parenting podcast that I really enjoyed, so I thought…why not give it a try? It’s basically tinder dating to find mom friends. You swipe one way if you like the person and swipe the other if you don’t. I’ve been looking at it, and connected with a few moms through the app, but nothing had led to any kind of substantial communication so far. And then, it happened! I had a mom reach out to say hi and we hit it off!

It was great to chat back and forth with her, because it made me feel happy to have someone with similar struggles (i.e. hiding under the crib to look at your iPhone while your darling falls asleep, or dealing with a kiddo meltdown). Our online rapport and banter had been so much fun, that we decided to meet up for a coffee date this weekend.

I was nervous and excited to meet this new potential mom friend. What if our online chemistry didn’t translate in real life? What if we didn’t jive or the conversation was awkward and weird? What if she thinks I’m a total weirdo (and not in a good way)?!? Finding new friends, even platonic ones, comes with all the same kind of worries of dating!

I worried all for naught, because we hit it off immediately. When I found her, she immediately reached out to hug me. I loved this, because I’m a huge hugger too! She reminded me a lot of a good friend from Los Angeles. In some ways, she talked very similarly to my friend that it threw me for a loop at first. We sat down at a table outside and talked for two hours straight. We had such easy conversation and my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling. I didn’t want to leave, but I also didn’t want to overstay my welcome either. We made plans to meet up again soon, next time bringing our daughters with.

There have been lots of new things lately. New job, new approach to my same old problems, new dynamic in my relationship, new way of trying to view myself. I’m hoping that today is the start of a another new thing. A new friendship with a kindred spirit.

I’ve struggled to make friends since moving to Atlanta in 2013. In LA, I had a close group of girlfriends that were my people. We regularly hung out, explored new things around LA and had each other over for dinner. It was a close group of women that I knew had my back no matter what. I miss that comraderie very much.

I don’t know if it’s been because of my work environments or the area or what but the problem has been that any women friends I’ve gotten to know are either 1) younger than me and don’t have kids yet or 2) they are older than me and their kids are in high school or college (or they don’t have kids). I’ve also seen a lot of what I like to call “Southern Belle” syndrome where everything is just great. So great. Motherhood is to be enjoyed every single second. Their marriage is perfect. I don’t know about you but my life feels really messy. I want someone that can share with me honestly saying “I feel like a hot fucking mess right now” versus telling me how perfect their life is. Those are the kinds of women friendships I want. Honest. Candid. Hysterical. Someone you can laugh with through whatever is going on, good or bad.

And to that end, since I haven’t been able to find my tribe, I’m trying another approach. I created a Meetup group today where I’m looking to connect with other moms. I’ve created the first three meetups and after obsessively checking the Meetup group all day, there is still just 1 member: me. I’m scared I will put myself out there and I won’t have any takers. Ever. That I won’t find my people again. But even if that happens at least I can say I tried right?!?

I’m putting myself out there with good intentions and hope that the universe supports me and helps deliver some new friends.

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